A couple months ago, the venerable institution known as Street Sheet reached out to us to contribute to an all comix issue on the subject of homelessness in SF, and, having drawn a couplecomix in the past on SF politics ridiculous, draconian approach to homelessness policy, we were all in. Our own Mike Reger ended up illustrating the cover for that issue, and we also committed to draw not one, but two minis worth of material on the subject… Of which this mini is the first (although they kind of serve as a continuous narrative, with this comic laying out the failure of decades of criminalizing homelessness, and the next comic putting forth some ideas as towards real solutions).

I wanted this particular mini comic to really hammer home how useless this ongoing trend is of kicking the homeless while they are down, be it taking their government assistance and shopping carts, or criminalizing sleeping or even sitting on the sidewalk. The sad fact is, every election year without fail there will be some sort of legislation or mayoral candidate crafted with the sole purpose of making the lives of people who already have nothing even harder… and the sadder fact is, most of these propositions and candidates end up winning. It seems like that’s the curse of being a city with such a draw towards newcomers, we’re constantly doomed to not only not learn from, but repeat the mistakes of the past.

But luckily, we’re here to remind you that these draconian policies aren’t anything new, it’s literally been the policy of the city for decades to “crack down” on the homeless, rather than tackle the causes of homelessness, and that this tactic has never, EVER worked.